Neither here nor there.
Gabriel Kahane makes social justice sing in a Trinity Church premiere, plus more select musical events for the week ahead.
Today’s newsletter was going to be about one of two things, depending on who won the argument. The avocational music critic foresaw sharing some thoughts about the exciting program the New York Philharmonic presented under the title Afromodernism: Music of the African Diaspora, comprising a New York premiere by Nathalie Joachim and significant works by Carlos Simon, David Baker, and William Grant Still.
Meanwhile, the prog-rock dork, emboldened by positive response to thoughts posted recently about the BEAT Tour at the Beacon Theatre, looked forward to sounding off about a quasi-local date by the David Cross Band on its first-ever U.S. tour. Cross, who played violin and Mellotron in King Crimson from 1972 to 1974, led his own group – featuring guitarist and vocalist John Mitchell, one of my current obsessions – in a complete performance of the 1972 King Crimson LP Larks’ Tongues in Aspic on Friday night at ProgStock 2024 in Rutherford, NJ.
It would have been quite the battle, or maybe even a draw. Alas, for reasons unforeseen, in the end neither contestant attended the show of his choosing.
That’s why I’m going to direct you instead toward the powerful, illuminating and moving post Gabriel Kahane shared Monday on his Substack newsletter, Words & Music. Titled “an empathetic leap,” the essay delves into the urgent activist urge behind his oratorio, emergency shelter intake form, which has its New York premiere in a free concert this Thursday evening at Trinity Church Wall Street.
The essay is strongly recommended, and so is the performance. Perhaps next week, one of the characters populating this newsletter lately will have some words to share about the event—heck, maybe both will, seeing as how Kahane has earned the Prog magazine seal of approval. (Who knew?)
Details of the performance appear among the listings below.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
22
Ainadamar
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 7:30pm; Friday, Oct. 25 at 8pm; Sunday, Oct. 27 at 3pm; through Nov. 9; $35–$460
metopera.org
The brief, arresting opera by composer Osvaldo Golijov and playwright David Henry Hwang, concerning the life and work of poet-playwright Federico García Lorca, comes to the Met in a production by Deborah Colker with all-important sound design by Mark Grey. Angel Blue portrays Margarita Xirgu in most performances, Daniela Mack is García Lorca, and conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya makes his house debut.
Tim Berne
Lowlands Bar
543 3rd Ave., Brooklyn
Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 8pm; pass-the-hat
instagram.com/berneornot
Saxophonist and composer Tim Berne has been in residence at Lowlands for months now, a homespun residency he unpacked in a recent New York Times feature by Hank Shteamer. Here, he celebrates his 70th birthday (Oct. 16) with close regular collaborators Gregg Belisle-Chi, John Hébert, Tom Rainey, and Aurora Nealand.
23
Marco Fusi
Teatro of the Italian Academy
1161 Amsterdam Ave., Upper West Side
Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 7pm; free with R.S.V.P.
italianacademy.columbia.edu
Marco Fusi, a poised, intense, and sure-handed violinist with a knack for making formidable modern works sing out expressively, plays new and recent works by Salvatore Sciarrino and Yu Kuwabara, most of them U.S. premieres.
Caroline Shaw, Alicia Olatuja & Sō Percussion
92NY
1395 Lexington Ave., Upper East Side
Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 7:30pm; $40–$60
92ny.org
Composer and singer Caroline Shaw joins Sō Percussion to perform music from their latest spellbinding collaboration on record, Rectangles and Circumstance, which I wrote about here when it arrived in June. Soprano Alicia Olatuja joins Sō for Narrow Sea, the Sacred Harp-inspired 2017 work Shaw wrote for Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw, and Gil Kalish. (See Oct. 29, Ken Burns’s Leonardo da Vinci, for another event featuring Shaw and Sō.)
24
NOVUS
Trinity Church Wall Street
89 Broadway, Lower Manhattan
Thursday, Oct. 24 at 7pm; free, with recommended R.S.V.P.
trinitywallstreet.org
Daniela Candillari conducts NOVUS, Trinity Wall Street’s resident new-music orchestra, in the New York premiere of emergency shelter intake form, the trenchant oratorio Kahane wrote for the Oregon Symphony. In addition to Kahane, vocalists include Alicia Hall Moran, Holland Andrews, Holcombe Waller, and choirs from the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Admission is free, but reservations are recommended.
25
The Sound Between
Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church
921 Madison Ave.; Upper East Side
Friday, Oct. 25 at 7:30pm; $30–$60, seniors and students $25, 12 and under free
tsbensemble.com
A bright young independent ensemble devoted to the proposal of telling stories through choral music, The Sound Between presents a modern masterpiece all too seldom heard: Vigilia, a mesmerizing 1996 work for unaccompanied singers written by the late Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara in response to his overwhelming 1939 visit to Valamo Monastery.
(Un)Silent Film: Dracula in Concert
John L. Tishman Auditorium, The New School
66 W. 12th St., Greenwich Village
Friday, Oct. 25 at 7:30pm; free with recommended R.S.V.P.
event.newschool.edu
The first of three consecutive events involving music by Philip Glass arrives in anticipation of Halloween: pianist, conductor, and longtime Glass collaborator Michael Riesman joins the Orange Road Quartet to perform Glass’s score for Dracula, in sync with a screening of the classic 1931 horror film. R.S.V.P.s are strongly recommended—and you’ll get free movie popcorn, too. (See Oct. 26, Namekawa-Davies Duo, and Oct. 27, Mivos Quartet, for further Glass fare.)
26
Keyed-Up Music Project
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Saturday, Oct. 26 at 7pm; $25
keyedupmusicproject.com
Frank J. Oteri, a composer, performer, educator, and tireless advocate for contemporary concert music (and much, much else), celebrates his 60th birthday during the first offering of the new Keyed-Up Music Project season. Series curator Marc Peloquin is joined at the piano by Trudy Chan, an accomplished performer and similarly dogged advocate – and also Oteri’s wife – in a program featuring the world premiere of a new piano four-hands work by Oteri, plus the rarely heard Sonata for Four Hands by Ned Rorem and more besides.
Namekawa-Davies Duo
Auditorium at 12th Street at The New School
66 W. 12th St., Greenwich Village
Saturday, Oct. 26 at 7:30pm; free with recommended R.S.V.P.
event.newschool.edu
Pianists and life-partners Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies visit Greenwich Village with an old Steve Reich staple, Piano Phase, and a recent work by Philip Glass, Elergy for the Present, in its U.S. premiere. More music by Glass and works by Laurie Anderson and Hania Rani complete the program, accompanied with real-time visualizations by Cori O’Lan.
27 + 28
Mivos Quartet
New York City AIDS Memorial
St. Vincent's Triangle, 7 Ave., W. 12th St., and Greenwich Ave.; West Village
Sunday, Oct. 27 at 3pm; free admission, rain or shine
nycaidsmemorial.org
DiMenna Center for Classical Music
450 W. 37th St.; Midtown West
Monday, Oct. 28 at 7:30pm; $15–$25
withfriends.co
Two prime opportunities to catch the excellent Mivos Quartet in action this week. On Sunday afternoon, the group plays a free performance of Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 4 (“Buczak”), commissioned in memory of Brian Buczak, an exceptional multidisciplinary artist who died of AIDS-related illness in 1987. (You’ll find a concise yet admirably detailed program note here.) Then on Monday evening, new-music and performance-art collective Qubit presents Mivos in an evening of electroacoustic premieres by Ambrose Akinmusire, David Bird, Michaela Catranis, and Alec Hall.
29
Ken Burns’s Leonardo da Vinci
The Town Hall
123 West 43rd Street; Midtown West
Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 8pm; $47.30–$57.80
thetownhall.org
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns previews clips from his anticipated upcoming documentary about Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci, and Caroline Shaw is joined by Roomful of Teeth, Attacca Quartet, and Sō Percussion in selections from her score, due Oct. 25 on Nonesuch. (If you’re interested, don’t dawdle; as I type this, fewer than 20 tickets remain available.)
Music for Three Strings
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Upper West Side
Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 6pm; free admission
millertheatre.com
Violinist Modney, violist Kyle Armbrust, and cellist Michael Nicolas mark the passing in July 2024 of the great German composer Wolfgang Rihm with a performance of his 1977 work Musik für Drei Streicher. Doors open at 5:30pm, and onstage seats around the performers are first-come, first-served.
More vital directories of new-music destinations:
Find even more events in Night After Night Watch: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.